He was a sergeant by the time he was 18, and a lieutenant by 1847 when he began his association with the 14th Regiment (New York State Militia), a unit made up primarily of Brooklyn businessmen, tradesmen and firemen.

They were deployed to action at the Battle of Bull Run, where their red pants and their fierceness earned them the nickname the "Red-Legged Devils".

Little did the officers of that board dream that the uniform that they then adopted would become historic, sung of in poets' lays and transferred to the artist's canvas as that of the "red-legged devils," the Brooklyn Fourteenth.

[1] In January 1863, Fowler returned to active duty, and commanded the 14th Brooklyn in the Battle of Gettysburg as part of the First Army Corps.

[3] Fowler returned to Brooklyn, where he lived in Fort Greene and took on the positions of an officer of the Long Island Savings Bank, the treasurer of the Atlantic & Pacific Company, the auditor of the Commercial Cable Company, the chief clerk of the Brooklyn Board of Audit and a member of the Kings County 11th Ward Board of Supervisors.